A leopard prepares to attack a forest guard at Prakash Nagar village near Salugara in India, on 19 July; the animal ended up being shot. Photograph: AP

The attack by a leopard on up to six forest rangers in Siliguri in the Sikkim region of north-east India was a tragic result for both the people and animal victims of the conflict occurring between humans and wildlife.

In pictures

In this case it was a male leopard, a species that sometimes adapts to moving into semi-urban areas, that became cornered – and as the photos in the press clearly show, the animal was fighting for his survival as only such a big cat can.

The tragedy of its death occurred in a situation where the forest guards were clearly attempting to safely stop it in its tracks. In ideal circumstances it would have been tranquilised, removed and later released in its natural habitat away from urban development. Why the leopard was there in the first place may never be known, but there are other similar incidents with happier outcomes, in which the animal was tranquilised and removed and no party injured.

Human-wildlife conflict issues in India – and particularly in the northern areas of the country – are one of the daily concerns for so many rural communities. Occasionally and tragically this can lead to death or injury of people and animals, but people's livelihoods are more often affected as a result of damage or consumption of crops or livestock.

Elephants coming to feed on crops or just moving through a farmer's fields can decimate a farmer's annual crop in a single night, and predators such as leopards and tigers take valuable livestock. Less spectacularly but equally damaging, wild pigs, antelope, deer and monkeys all wreak havoc on farmers' essential subsistence crops such a maize, rice or wheat.

As human populations increase so do food demands, leading to the development of additional land for farming, which frequently leads to previously natural habitats, such as forests, being converted for farming, and populations of animals becoming more and more constricted.

And it is, of course, the people who are poorest and most dependent on their crops and livestock who are the most affected. Traditionally and most simply, watching over crops and scaring away animals has been the most effective method, but it is time-consuming and sometimes even dangerous.

Technology such as electric fences, ditches or other barriers can be used but sometimes are only effective in the short term against intelligent animals such as elephants, which can pull down trees to break fencing.

Use of several natural deterrents is possible – for instance, finding materials or structures animals don't like and won't pass through to get to the crops: hot pepper sprays or unpalatable but valuable crops such as mint or camomile, even bees – all have been used successfully in different instances.

Increased conflict between humans and wildlife will almost certainly continue unless effective methods of enabling them to live next to each other are developed and put into practice.

An alternative approach is through compensation processes whereby – most commonly for the loss of livestock – individuals are paid for reported and verified losses. A successful scheme in the Terai Arc in north-east India around the Corbett National Park is run by a community-based organisation to help provide a quick response to any livestock mortalities by predators in co-operation with the government forest department, which provides the bulk of compensation payments. This helps communities quickly come to terms with such losses and reduces the likelihood of immediate retaliatory action against the predators, which in nearly all cases are species themselves under threat of disappearing from their habitats in so many places.

The WWF report Common Ground, which looks at the issues of human-wildlife conflict in a global context, also recognises the need to address this issue at the higher level, as well as how appropriate land-use planning can be developed. The potential to save money and human and animal lives purely through a more intelligent planning approach cannot be ignored.